Living Arrangements
by WildClover27
Summary: A flashback to Terry's first morning at the mansion and the consequences.


Garrison heard the sounds of slightly off key piano music coming from upstairs when he entered the house. Even the cons looked up.

Actor shook his head. "We need to get that fixed, Warden. It sounds terrible."

"Yeah, well you get a piano tuner and you pay for it," said Craig wryly. Secretly he agreed with the confidence man, but he wasn't forking out money to tune a blasted piano he hadn't wanted moved there in the first place. With an inward smile, he wouldn't put it past the Italian to do just that.

The men went into the kitchen to scrounge coffee and snacks. Garrison went upstairs to let his sister know they were back. Terry turned in surprise when she heard his boots on the floor behind her.

"Hey, what happened to my phone call letting me know you guys were on your way back? I don't have any sandwiches made or anything," she admonished him.

"It's daytime. They are big boys. They are perfectly capable of getting their own food," said Craig. He shrugged out of his jacket and gave her a one armed hug around the neck.

"Jerk," she said with affectionate amusement.

Garrison headed back for the door with the intent of going to his room for a shower and a nap. As he walked away he threw over his shoulder. "That thing sounds like a hog about to go to slaughter."

"Thanks a lot," shot back Terry with a grin. "If you don't like it, I'm sure we can find you a nice noisy combat area to send you back to in France."

She got a snort in return. Terry ran a hand over the edge of the top of the piano. She smiled, her mind going back to the first morning after she had arrived at the mansion.

GGGGG

Terry stepped out of her room into the hall. She could hear the men were all downstairs. She looked around and started down the hall in front of her. The first room on the right she knew was Craig's. Curiously, she opened the door and looked in. It was basically set up like her room with a four poster bed, armoire, chest of drawers and a desk. Closing the door quietly, she stepped down to the next room. Opening that door, she stood and looked with a frown on her face. The room was unoccupied. There was a bed with a bare mattress, the same furnishings as her brother's room, but no personal items. She found that odd. She knew the men slept up here, but obviously not in this room. Moving a little faster, she opened the doors and looked in the other bedrooms. They were empty too.

This brought her to the upstairs common room. She opened the door and stepped inside. Looking around, she stopped short. There were four army cots around the room. A clothesline was strung across from one sconce to another with men's underwear hanging from it. A round table stood in the middle of the floor. In the corners were a couple large chairs. One of Actor's pipes was sitting in an ashtray on an end table next to the chair in the far left corner. Terry wasn't sure what to make of this. It didn't make any sense.

Goniff stepped up quietly behind her. She looked around sharply.

"I'm sorry," she apologized. "I didn't mean to invade your – uh – space." She looked at the blond man. "You all live together in here?"

Goniff nodded.

"Why?" asked Terry.

Goniff shrugged, "'Cuz the Warden wants it this way."

"Why?" she asked again.

"'Cuz the Warden says so," was the casual response.

"Oh," was all Terry could say.

Terry entered her brother's office. He looked up at the confused look on her face.

"What's the matter?" he asked, not really wanting to deal with whatever it was.

"Why are there four perfectly good bedrooms upstairs and they are all sleeping on cots in one common room?"

"It works out better this way."

"Better for who?" asked the girl.

"For me and them. They have to learn to live together. And this way I can keep an eye on them."

Terry still wasn't seeing the logic behind this. "I thought you said they fight all the time."

"They do," replied Garrison, looking back at his paperwork.

"You ever think maybe they see too much of each other and that's why they fight?"

Craig looked up with exasperation. "Terry, mind your own business."

Those were fighting words.

Terry, Kit and Shiv surveyed the common room. Shiv scratched his head.

"All four of them have been living in here for the past seven months?"

"Yup," said Terry with disgust. "I don't know how Craig expects to rehabilitate them if he treats them like animals."

"I don't think rehabilitation is what Craig has in mind," said Shiv sarcastically. "The purpose is to use them for their 'unique' talents. That's not rehabilitation."

Kit shook her head. "I'm the first to say I don't like Craig's men, but this? This is just not right."

"So what do you want to do?" asked Shiv.

"I want to take those cots apart and haul them down to the cellar. In pieces. I want it to be as hard for Craig to drag them back up and put them back together as possible."

"Not a problem," grinned Shiv. "Want me to hide the hardware?"

Terry grinned, "Oh yeah. I like how your mind works."

Terry and Kit started working around the room, taking down the makeshift clothesline. Shiv started to work on the first cot. As he was down close to the metal frame, he saw scratches in the metal. He examined them closely. Judging by their locations he hazarded a guess that Craig had been cuffing them to the beds at night. Shiv was not about to bring that to Terry's attention. He knew his ex-girlfriend well enough to know she would go off like a Roman candle if she found that out.

Kit was poking around the room and started to laugh. "I think I found the dirty laundry."

There was a tall urn in one corner with a chessboard covering the top. Kit had lifted the board off. Terry peered down at a huge pile of wadded up clothes.

"Wonderful, I'll be doing laundry for a week."

Kit looked around the room. "What do you want to do with their things?"

"Leave them alone," said Terry. "It's not my place to be going through their personal belongings. They can choose their own rooms and then move their stuff in."

"You know," said Shiv. "Your brother's gonna kill you. Didn't you learn anything in New York?"

"Yeah," said Terry cockily. "This time I'm gonna win."

Terry waited until the men were all headed up the stairs. They were tired and sore and dirty. Craig walked to his office. Terry stood at the bottom of the stairs.

"Uh, Gentlemen," she said. "There's been a little change in sleeping arrangements." That got everybody's attention. The cons stopped and looked back at her. Craig stopped and eyed her narrowly with suspicion. "There are four bedrooms made up. Take your pick. I didn't touch your things so you will have to move them into whatever room you each pick."

Garrison saw red. "Who gave you permission to do that?"

"I did," said Terry with a challenge in her voice.

Craig looked at his men. "You are staying in the common room."

"They can't," said Terry. "There's no place for them to sleep."

"Where are the cots?" demanded Garrison.

"In storage you might say. Of course they are in pieces and I think some of the pieces are missing."

"Damn it Terry," exploded Craig. "This is an army installation. You can't do that."

Terry grinned, "This isn't an army installation, it's a frigging mausoleum. And I already did."

Garrison was beside himself with rage. "In my office, now! We're going to have this out."

Terry grinned wider, "Bring it on, Brother!"

Craig turned and strode into his office. Terry looked up at the stunned and amused faces looking down at her. She flicked her hands at them, shooing them on upstairs. When they started on up, she strode into the office and kicked the door shut.

"What the hell did you think you were doing?" demanded the irate officer.

"You tell me what the hell you thought you were doing. Those men may be cons, but they're also adults and this isn't a summer camp with camp cots! There was no privacy. Very little comfort. No wonder they're fighting each other all the time. They can't get away from each other."

"I need to keep them together where I can control them. Given half a chance, they would be gone in a heartbeat."

"From what I hear, they seem to manage to get down to the Doves quite frequently. Cots or no cots. If they want out of here, they'll get out of here. It doesn't matter where they are sleeping. And they just might be less inclined to leave if they are treated like human beings. What do you want to do? Shackle them to the cots?"

Craig sucked on his cheek. "I stopped that a couple months ago."

Terry stared at him in utter amazement. "You are joking aren't you?"

Craig had the decency to look guilty. "No."

"What the friggin' hell is the matter with you?" yelled Terry in rage. "I know you got a head injury in North Africa, but did you lose some of your marbles with it?"

"What are you a shrink now?" yelled Craig back at her.

"Well I obviously have more darn sense than you do!"

The four men stood quietly at the top of the stairs, trying to hear what was going on. They could hear the angry yelling and some of the words.

"Lady's got a temper," drawled Chief.

"That she most definitely does," agreed Actor.

"I don't think I'd want to tangle with 'er," was Goniff's comment.

Casino chuckled, "Damn, she's givin' it out as good as she's getting it."

Goniff grinned, "I wonder whose gonna win."

"I don't know," said Chief. "Warden's hard to beat."

"I got ten on the girl," said Casino, pulling money from his pocket.

Actor held both hands out to collect the bets. Casino and Actor were for Terry. Chief and Goniff were for the Warden.

"I would suggest we get our belongings safely into our new rooms before the Lieutenant comes upstairs," said Actor.

Sleep forgotten, the men hurried to the common room and then sorted out the bedrooms.

It was a while later that Terry calmly approached her bedroom. She looked down the hall at the four men watching her. She stifled a smile. "There's clean laundry down in the utility room. I don't know what belongs to who so you'll have to sort it out yourselves. Good night, Gentlemen."

"Buono Notte," said Actor back at her.

Garrison came up as Terry's door closed. He and the cons exchanged looks. Garrison was still smoldering. "It's too much trouble to straighten things out now. We'll try it. If even one of you screws up, you're all going back in there," he pointed to the common room.

"I am sure that will not be necessary, Lieutenant," assured Actor.

Craig gave the Italian a hard look, before going into his bedroom. Actor divided the money up between himself and Casino with a grin. The four each went into a room to spend the rest of the night in a real bed.

It was two weeks later before the cons found a way to repay Terry for getting them their own rooms. Goniff had been talking with the girl while they were at the farm market and it came up that she liked to play the piano when she was upset or bored. They knew from unauthorized forays into the locked part of the upstairs, there was a piano in one of the rooms.

Terry was washing dishes in the kitchen and Garrison was working in his office, when they both heard strange bumping and swearing coming from over their heads.

"Hey, watch it, yuh Dumb Limey, I need those fingers."

"Well stay off me bleedin' feet!"

"Quiet, both of you."

"Hurry, up. This thing's heavy."

The two Garrisons met at the bottom of the stairs. They both winced at a scraping sound. "That sounded like wall," remarked Terry.

"What now?" lamented Garrison. "They're worse than kids."

The siblings climbed the stairs just in time to see Actor and the sideways tail end of a baby grand piano disappear into the common room. Garrison could not believe what he had just seen. Terry was trying hard not to laugh. They approached the door and looked in. The space where Casino's old cot had been now had a piano resting on its edge. There were four legs stacked on the table in the center of the room. Four overly innocent faces smiled at the siblings.

"Where the hell did you get that?" demanded Craig. "You know the other half of the building is off limits and we are not to touch the family's belongings."

"Well, we wanted to do somethin' for Terry, seein' as she's so nice to us," said Goniff brightly.

"You found me a piano!" exclaimed Terry in delight.

"Quiet!" said Garrison. "You're not helping."

"Now, Lieutenant," said Actor soothingly. "I am certain Teresa will be very careful with it and not damage it."

Craig glared at the con man. "It is not _Teresa_," he copied Actor's pronunciation of his sister's name, "that I'm worried about. It's you guys fighting up here and breaking it to pieces I'm worried about."

"Aw, we ain't gonna hurt the stupid thing, Warden," assured Casino.

"From the sounds of it, you already did."

Terry's head was turned sideways to look at the piano from the right direction. "You guys got me a piano," she said in quiet amazement. "That's so sweet of you."

Craig couldn't believe what he was hearing. "Sweet?"

Actor shot an annoyed look at the young officer. He smiled at the girl. "It was the least we could do for Teresa arranging our own rooms for us."

Garrison closed his eyes and shook his head. Terry stepped closer to the piano.

"Is there a bench for it?" she asked.

"Terry!"

"Stuff it, Craig. If they take it back, it'll get banged up more."

There was that, thought Garrison. His sister hadn't even been here a month and she had the place all topsy-turvy.

"You sneak her out to the Doves. You could have just bought her a drink?"

"They did already." Terry walked over to the table and picked up a leg. "How does this go on?" she asked eagerly.

"We'll get it for you, Babe," said Casino.

"There is a bench," said Actor. "We will get it for you when we have this put together."

"You like it, Love?' asked Goniff worriedly.

"It's wonderful!" assured Terry. "Oh, I have to come up with something special for you guys for supper tonight."

Garrison just shook his head and walked away. Now he had five delinquents.

GGGGG

Terry smiled to herself. Yup, she had won that round. Not only did the guys keep their rooms, she had kept her piano. It was still out of tune, but there was a war on, so what the heck.


End file.
